


everything i made next to everything i am

by Siria



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1441792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Derek gets a phone call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everything i made next to everything i am

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dogeared](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogeared/gifts).



> A birthday fic for Jenn. Thanks to sheafrotherdon for betaing.

Derek had never minded working the early shift. Erica teased him about it, how he was probably the one person in town who preferred to get up long before dawn rather than talk to people, but Derek knew he was never going to be a people person. The less time he had to spend with customers the better, for everyone's sake. He wasn't good at putting people at their ease at the best of times, let alone when someone was worried about a sick or injured pet. He left that side of things to Scott or Deaton and spent most of the time in the back of the clinic. 

He swept up and mopped and emptied litter boxes, measured out medication and poured fresh water into bowls. It was nice, seeing the proof of how much less angry he'd been these past few years in how the animals responded to him. Most of them were never going to warm to him, of course, still seeing a predator in him even when his claws were sheathed and his eyes neutral. But the gerbils didn't curl up into trembling balls at Derek's approach anymore and the dogs seemed to downright like him, tails wagging and hips swinging enthusiastically from their first scent of him. He usually liked to be pretty efficient about his work, but he always found ten extra minutes to stoop and scritch the dogs behind their ears before getting a start on the day's paperwork.

Derek liked the uncomplicated happiness and affection such simple gestures earned him, the way some of the dogs would try to lick his face or snuggle up next to him. It made him feel like he was doing something good here, something worthwhile, and it was never difficult to read animals the way it could be with people. Animals never set out to trick you. 

(Except maybe the cats. Derek had never managed to move much beyond an uneasy truce with the cats.)

Normally he listened to music while he worked, humming along with Top 40 hits sung by people he couldn't name, which was why this morning it took Derek a moment to realise that his phone was ringing. It was the ringtone Stiles had set for himself, a tinny instrumental version of the theme music from _The Muppet Show_. Stiles had explained the reasoning behind it once, but Derek had purposefully tried not to listen too closely because he was pretty sure it was based on an analogy that makes one of them Miss Piggy. Derek's relationship history was already weird enough without trying to think that one through. 

A glance at the clock showed that it was just after seven, so Stiles should be on his way to work right now. Derek sighed, wondering if this meant Stiles had managed to lock his keys inside the house again—Stiles was rarely able to communicate in anything more complex than emoji-based text messages before nine am or his first two cups of coffee, whichever came first. 

He swiped his thumb across the screen to answer, and held the phone up to his ear in time to hear Stiles taking a deep breath and say, "So don't get mad."

Which told Derek it wasn't the keys, because after the third time Derek had had to climb up onto the porch roof and in through the tiny window in the guest washroom, he'd moved from anger and bargaining to acceptance. The fact that Stiles was constitutionally incapable of keeping track of where he'd put his keys was just another part of living with him, like the fact that half of their closet was filled with plaid shirts, their living room was cluttered with every games console known to humanity, and Stiles' preferred Sunday afternoon pastime was blowing Derek so slowly and thoroughly that it made Derek's eyes water.

He set down the bag of kibble he was holding. "Stiles."

"It just, it seemed like a really good idea at the time—"

"Stiles."

There was a noise at the other end of the line that Derek couldn't quite make out. "And you're not allowed to laugh either, okay—"

Derek blinked. "Did you try to do magic again? Because you were lucky your eyebrows grew back the last time, you know Melissa said—"

"One time!" Stiles yelped. "That was one time and a really tricky banishing ritual, dude, and just for that you're doing the dishes this evening." 

Derek scrubbed at his face. "I _always_ do the dishes, Stiles." Within about two weeks of moving in together, they'd realised that it would be better for everyone if Stiles cooked and Derek did the dishes—that way they'd have something edible for dinner, and intact plates to put the food on. 

"But last week I—"

" _Stiles_."

"Fine, fine, but I was doing a good thing, okay, just remember that when—"

Derek let out a low warning rumble that set the dogs in the next room barking. 

"Okay, so, when I was leaving for work this morning," Stiles said, all in a rush, "I heard these mewing noises and I couldn't figure out where they were coming from so I looked around and saw there was a kitten up the tree next to the garage, you know, the oak? But I sort of underestimated the height and the difficulty of climbing down while holding a kitten as opposed to, you know, climbing up while not holding one? So I'm a little bit... stuck."

"A little bit stuck," Derek repeated flatly. 

"Also," Stiles said, his voice pitching that little bit higher, "I think maybe this branch isn't exactly the most stable thing in the world?"

Derek closed his eyes. He breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth, running through some of the breathing exercises Melissa had taught him. ("I'm Scott's mom and Stiles' stepmom," she'd said, "and my husband chases down bad guys for a living, I need all the visualisation techniques in the world. That and wine.")

"You're stuck up a tree," he said after a moment. "Okay. I'll be there in ten."

Derek sent a quick text to Deaton telling him that he had to leave for a few minutes, then headed out. He left the car at the clinic, because it was easier for him to cut through the woods that lay between there and the house, breaking into a run as soon as he was sure no-one would be able to see him through the trees. There had been just enough panic tinging Stiles' voice to make Derek push himself, and it was less than ten minutes before he emerged from the tree line into their back garden. 

He rounded the corner of the house and Stiles' car, looked up to see that yes, there was Stiles, limbs wrapped around the thickest branch of the tree. There was a tabby kitten sitting on his head, whose mewling cries turned to hisses as soon as it spotted Derek. 

Because Derek was an adult werewolf, he didn't hiss back at it. 

"Hey, honey," Stiles said weakly. 

Derek stood looking up at him, hands on his hips. "I should take a photo of this, you realise." He probably would have, if he hadn't left his phone back at the clinic. 

"That would be a violation of our wedding vows," Stiles said, turning his head just enough that he could see Derek. 

"Funnily enough," Derek said, "of all the stuff you thought to put in there, this was not one of them." And Stiles had thought of _lots_ ; the Sheriff had had his head in his hands by the end of the ceremony and Allison had tried so hard to repress her laughter that Derek was still surprised she hadn't gone into labour then and there. 

"So many tragic life oversights on my part," Stiles said mournfully. 

Derek sighed and headed for the garage. 

"What, wait, wait," Stiles said, wriggling around on the branch like he was trying to track Derek's movements without actually moving himself. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to get a ladder," Derek called over his shoulder as he pushed up the garage door. He sighed again. The place was a mess. Great.

"A _ladder_?" Stiles said. "What the hell, why not just werewolf me down? Less effort, less time, less risk of me breaking my face on the asphalt." As if on cue, the tree branch made a faint but ominous creaking noise. 

"Well," Derek said, clambering over the stack of paint cans which were the remnants of their ill-fated attempt to paint the exterior of the house last summer. "It's broad daylight, we have neighbours who already think we're certifiable." He peered under the mound of decrepit lacrosse equipment that Stiles hadn't touched since high school but couldn't be persuaded to throw away, around stacks of newspapers that Derek had been forgetting to bring to the recycling depot for a week now, and then let out a grunt of triumph when he spotted the ladder behind Stiles' mountain bike. "Plus I'm 32 years old, Stiles. Thirty-two-year-olds use ladders."

"Now you're developing dignity?" Stiles said as Derek dragged the ladder out of the garage and set it up against the tree trunk. " _Now_?"

"Says the guy with the cat on his head," Derek said as he climbed up, the ladder shuddering beneath his feet.

"Let's not bring logic into this," Stiles said, as Derek reached out and carefully picked up the kitten. It hissed at him and tried to scratch him tiny, ineffectual little claws; Derek cradled it against his chest with one hand before climbing back down. When he reached the ground, he checked to make sure the little guy was okay before setting back off in the direction of the clinic. 

"Hey, hey," Stiles called after him, "Where are you going, I'm still up here! Hi, the love of your life still in arboreal peril!"

Derek turned and peered up at him for a moment. "Ladder's right there. I'm bringing the cat over for Scott to check him out."

Stiles' jaw dropped open comically far. "Abandonment!" he yelled. 

"See you this evening," Derek said, and went back to work. 

Scott checked the kitten out, running long fingers over its spine and making it purr at him. "Old enough to be away from his mom, but not old enough to know better. He's a little dehydrated and he had a little bit of a shock but nothing serious. Pretty typical teenager."

"How would we know what that's like?" Derek said drily. 

Scott laughed at that, and then took the kitten—named Pierre for reasons that surpassed Derek's understanding—to get some shots and to be spayed. Derek felt guilty about bringing the little guy in to experience that, so he retreated into the back office and alternated between updating the clinic's accounts and poking at his thesis until the clock reached one. 

He headed home, anticipating a quiet house, a sandwich, an hour with the novel that was almost due to be returned to the library before he started in on some chores. Instead, Derek got out of the car to find Stiles sitting on the front porch. His hands were a little scratched up and wrapped around a mug of coffee, though Stiles seemed more preoccupied with staring at it than drinking it. 

"Thought you had a meeting today," Derek said as he walked up the little gravel path that led from the driveway to the porch. 

"Yeah," Stiles said. He didn't look happy, but he shuffled over to make room for Derek next to him on the step, so Derek didn't think he was angry. 

Derek bumped their shoulders together gently. "You go in at all?"

Stiles shook his head. "I called in, took the day. I just couldn't... I'm sorry I made you angry."

Derek raised his eyebrows. "Why do you think you made me angry?"

"Well, you know, the whole..." Stiles flapped a hand in the air, almost sloshing coffee out of the mug; Derek gently took it from him and set it on the ground. "This morning."

"I wasn't angry," Derek said. "Just... resigned, I guess."

"Yeah, I'm not seeing the more positive spin here," Stiles said. 

Derek took a deep breath and looked out across their front lawn: the grass that he'd mowed last weekend, the quiet suburban street, the mailbox that neither of them could ever quite manage to get to stand upright. No other pack had tried to cross their territory in more than eighteen months, and the Nemeton was still asleep. This wasn't the kind of life he'd ever expected to have, something almost aggressively normal, where he had a husband and a house, where usually the most stressful thing in his life was trying to balance his job with going back to school and figuring out why the sink in the downstairs washroom was always backing up. 

"I spent a really long time watching people I care about be in danger," Derek said, looking over at Stiles. "Watching you be in danger, and sometimes you were in danger because of me, and sometimes it was because you never look before you leap. And I don't like that. It scares me, even if it's just you being an idiot and climbing a tree without calling me first."

Stiles scuffed his feet back and forth in the gravel. "Sorry," he said softly, hitching one shoulder. "I just..."

Derek thought of Stiles on the phone that morning saying, _I was doing a good thing, okay, just remember that_ ; how there had been a tremor in his voice that went deeper than fear of a branch breaking. "It's been almost ten years, Stiles, and sometimes you still act like you're trying to make up for what the nogitsune did."

Stiles startled, blinked at him, mouth wide like he was about to launch in on the mother of all protests, but then he seemed to crumple, leaning in to Derek's side. 

The first year, after it all, had been the worst: Stiles following his father around like a pup that feared abandonment and expected a kick; Stiles, with a look on his face like Derek remembered seeing in the mirror in the immediate aftermath of the fire, all grief and guilt. He'd tried his best to make himself indispensable, helping his dad and volunteering at the hospital with Melissa, turning in extra-credit assignments in every class and sitting at Allison's bedside while she recovered. Derek had remembered that feeling, too, following Laura around like a second shadow because if he was a good enough beta then maybe she wouldn't reject him. 

"You don't have to prove anything to me," Derek said, and pressed a kiss to Stiles' temple, the unruly thatch of his hair. 

Stiles never had, even when he'd shown up on Derek's doorstep during Spring Break his first year of college, looking determined and so scared he was halfway to furious. He'd fisted his hands in Derek's shirt, said, "Look, if I'm wrong about this, don't punch me, okay? Okay," and kissed Derek. 

He hadn't been wrong. 

"Still feeling thrown off by that thing at work last week?" Derek said, wrapping an arm around Stiles' waist. 

Even without being able to see Stiles' face, Derek could tell that Stiles' rolled his eyes in a way that meant that Derek was totally right. Stiles had only been working there for a few months, and he was still in the phase where he felt uncertain, where all criticism cut deep and made Stiles feel like he wasn't doing his best by his clients.

"When did Derek Hale get so insightful about reading people, huh?"

Derek smiled a little to himself. "I guess I had some incentive."

Stiles hummed under his breath. "See, you can't say stuff like that."

"Oh?"

"No, that is terrible and awful because you saying that is going to make me want to jump you right here on the porch and have soppy, smushy, married-person sex while scandalising the neighbours. Like, boning tenderly while staring into one another's eyes and 'Unchained Melody' plays on the radio."

"Take me to bed or lose me forever," Derek said solemnly. 

"Ugh," Stiles said, sitting up, "all the pop culture you still don't know but that you pick up on, this is terrible, that was in the _eighties_ and—"

Derek leaned in and kissed him, slowly at first and then gradually building in intensity. He tangled his fingers in the soft hairs at the nape of Stiles' neck, holding him steady while he sucked gently on Stiles' lower lip. They were sitting in the shade but Derek could feel heat prickle along his spine, warmth pool in his belly, because it was instinctual now, the way his body responded to Stiles' touch, to the soft sounds he made and the way he smelled. When the kiss finally ended, Derek didn't pull away. He rested his forehead against Stiles', closed his eyes and listened to the reassuring steadiness of Stiles' heartbeat. 

"You asshole," Stiles said, "this is a systematic targeting of all my weak spots."

"Not all of them," Derek said blandly, and slowly slid his hand up Stiles' thigh, over the lightweight cloth of Stiles' thin summer pants and the outline of strong muscles beneath.

"Seriously," Stiles said, leg twitching underneath Derek's touch, "this is totally turning into an exercise in self-control for me, here. If my dad has to arrest me for public indecency..."

Derek pulled away a little and waited for Stiles to open his eyes. When he did, Derek smiled at him and said, "I'm never leaving you. You get that, right?"

"Oh my god," Stiles said, and the whining note in his voice would have sounded in earnest if not for the little grin that was tugging at the edge of his own lips, "all my weak spots." He stood, and reached out a hand for Derek to take. "C'mon, hurry up, this is totally time for smushy married-person sex."

Derek let Stiles lead him inside and up the stairs, pausing every couple of steps to kiss, to touch—because yes, Derek thought, he knew all of Stiles' weak spots, and Stiles knew all of his, and there the two of them still were, Stiles trusting that Derek would catch him when he was afraid to fall.


End file.
